


if we are caught in a wave, we'll make a way

by Hayaseki



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst and Feels, M/M, Pining, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Zukaang - Freeform, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko in denial
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24839647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hayaseki/pseuds/Hayaseki
Summary: Most people said that soulmates were a wonderful thing.It was a rare gift.For Zuko, however, soulmate was just a hindrance. A shackle to his purpose, to his own destiny.After all, was it convenient to be compassionate towards your own soulmate when he was nothing but a mere prize for you?--(A soulmate AU where the first words that a soulmate says after the words appear on their arm are inscribed on the inside of their wrist).
Relationships: Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 328
Collections: A:tla





	if we are caught in a wave, we'll make a way

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! English is my second language, so I apologize beforehand if there are any grammar mistakes found in this fic.

"_What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through;_  
 _Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do_."

\- What Would I Give, Christina G. Rossetti

Most people said that soulmates were a wonderful thing.

They always said how wonderful and lucky it was to know and feel that there was someone who was destined to be with you.

When you met your soulmate for the first time, you would feel that your soul had found its other half and taste the wholeness that one without soulmate could impossibly feel.

And then through the soulbond, you could feel and share joy, sadness, and even pain.

It was a sacred bond that you could only share with your own soulmate.

Because not everyone had it, some people said that it was also a gift. A rare gift.

But for Zuko, it was more like a _curse_.

* * *

Zuko was eleven years old when it was the first time he saw his own mother stifling her tears alone in her room.

Within the gloomy walls of her bedroom, she was sitting on the vast bed, clutching her wrist with her left cheek blooming red that looked so painful to his eyes.

He tried to ask her what was wrong, _who dared to do that to her_ , but she only gave him a little smile and kept saying that it was nothing.

But every night, he witnessed the same thing all over again. Her mother, sat alone in the darkness with only one candle on, letting her tears fell while clutching, sometimes caressing, her inner wrist.

His heart ached to see her mother looking so withered, emotionally and physically, day by day.

Mostly, he was so afraid to lose her.

And then one day, her mother just disappeared.

No one knew where she had gone, but he remembered that his parents were soulmates and from the stories he often heard, soulbonds could let other people know what they felt, saw, or heard.

_His father could find her._

Besides, he knew that the only one he could have some answers regarding his mother's disappearance was from his own father.

So Zuko went to see him hoping he knew where to find her.

But his father neither answered him nor glanced at his way.

Days passed and everything went like nothing happened.

He looked at his father who was sitting on his newly gained throne. His eyes were filled with shines of coldness and never once the new Fire Lord showed pain or sadness because his wife, his own soulmate, was gone.

What precious thing? What gift?

Soulmate, he concluded, was just a useless thing to have.

And he was glad that he never had any.

* * *

Zuko was thirteen years old when he tasted what true despair was.

He was disowned, scarred by his own father, banished from his own country.

He was stripped from his position and utterly humiliated in front of the whole nation.

Now he had no crown, no honor, _nothing_.

And to make everything worse, a soulmark was manifested on his left wrist when he was at the lowest point of his life, like the whole universe was trying to make him live a hellish life on purpose.

He tried to rub his inner wrist angrily hoping to see the damned mark could wear off like an ink.

To his dismay, it stubbornly stayed on his skin, but the words (more like a childish scrawl) appeared more vibrant now and a bit angry from his previously incessant rubbing.

 _‘Looking for me?’_ It said.

He hated the mark that branded him and truly despised the words that sounded like it was silently taunting him.

_(But somehow, at the back of his mind, he could picture that faceless soulmate of his saying those words to him when they would meet for the first time, and it gave him contradictory feelings of great anticipation and trepidation at the same time)._

* * *

Three years had passed and there were still no signs of the Avatar.

Some people said that the Avatar had already died when the Fire Nation launched military campaigns of genocide against the Air Nomads.

Some said that the Avatar was still alive and bid their time to come back and save the world.

But most people in the Fire Nation and a group of minorities believed that he or she had fled, too cowardly to face their responsibilities.

Well, Zuko didn’t really care if the Avatar was a coward or not. Capturing them was the only thing that mattered to him.

It was the only thing that could make everything _normal_ again after all.

So, when he caught a flare through his telescope in the South Pole and saw the movement of a silhouette jumping several feet into the air from the shipwreck, he knew that he had found the Avatar.

What he didn’t expect was that the Avatar was just only a kid.

The world savior was only a child.

And then it was all started with his wrist burned.

* * *

Seeing his fighting stance, the boy, the Avatar, cast a wary glance at him and open his mouth.

_“Looking for me?”_

And with that three words, Zuko drew a sharp breath as his whole world became an inferno in just one second.

It began from his arm, then there was something like a wildfire raging in his veins that gave him an illusion of his whole being was engulfed by fire.

What he felt was actually indescribable. There was a plethora of contradictory emotions, sensations, that he could hardly put them to words.

Rising heat erupted and came with it was an ecstasy of overwhelming power.

But at the same time, there was a burst of warmth and light that felt so gentle and made him feel much calmer. It was such a contrast with the feeling of power that cursing through his veins.

Strangely, they balanced together inside, also giving him a feeling of complete wholeness like he was not before.

Then, he could hear it in the end, the sound of two hearts beating.

And Zuko knew that he was the one.

The Avatar was his soulmate.

_... What kind of sick joke is this?_

_“You’re the Airbender? You are the Avatar?”_

The words were just naturally flowing out of his mouth without his brain could process, like there was an uncontrolled exertion pulling the words off his tongue.

His eyes flew up to stare at the boy whose eyes widened and gave him a look of disbelief.

 _He_ knew too.

* * *

The burn didn’t settle.

_It just won’t go away._

He grunted in frustration and threw a burst of fire, sending another one again and again until his opponent was sent backward.

Zhao was suddenly caught off-balance. His smirk got wiped up, apparently surprised by a sudden power-up performance from the exiled prince, but Zuko didn’t give him a chance to recover as he charged at him while launching a series of strong fire blasts.

He felt power rise in him from his inner wrist, up through his body and out from his fist.

Zuko channeled that excessive amounts of power to ferociously attack his opponent. He directed a powerful kick and finally knocked his adversary down.

But when he had to deliver the final blow, he couldn’t bring himself to strike him down.

It was already his win.

Though a sneak attack should be expected from that coward, his uncle deflected it and threw the commander aside. The retired general then hurriedly ushered Zuko out toward the gate of the arena, ignoring Zhao’s glare that burning holes behind their backs.

As they walked toward their ship, his uncle glanced at him, concern in his voice, “You have done well, Prince Zuko, but you looked a bit distracted back then.”

He glanced at his uncle fleetingly before he huffed.

“I wasn’t.”

But Iroh just raised his brow in return, clearly doubting his nephew’s previous answer.

“Your temper was also a bit volatile during the fight. As I have told you so many times, a firebender has to control their emotions properly so they will not risk losing control of their own bending, Prince Zuko.”

Zuko frowned, the corners of his mouth quirking down minutely. Suppressing his anger, the exiled prince huffed and glared at the retired general, “The only thing that matters now is I have already won, Uncle!”

“Now we better go back to our ship and make sure that everything has been repaired properly because we have to quickly catch the Avatar before anyone else does!” And with that, he left his uncle behind (who was still giving him probing eyes) and strode away faster toward their ship.

Subconsciously, he knew that his uncle was right. He just didn’t want to hear any of his lectures now. His soulmark, which was hidden behind the bandage, still left irritating and throbbing sensations on his skin that made him want to snap at everything he saw.

In the past three years, he always took extra care of hiding the mark, always carefully bandaged his wrist even if it would be covered under his robes and armor.

But today in the arena, as he was clad in Agni Kai clothes with no shirt and just a bandage as the sole layer of protection to hide his mark from the prying eyes, he felt so unusually restless.

When he was fighting Zhao back then, the truth was with the rising power, a myriad of emotions was coursing his mind in waves of fury, anguish, and despair.

The emotions had only lasted a few seconds and they came and went so briefly like a wind breeze.

They weren’t his.

He heard about empathetic soulbonds before, but he couldn’t believe that it was happening to him of all people and occurring so fast after they just first met.

What would happen if he was in another fight and the soulbond acted up again?

It was just his luck that the soulbond reflected the other’s emotions fleetingly and he could somewhat repress them so it didn’t do much interfering during his fight before.

_But what would happen next?_

Zuko didn’t need this strange connection, didn’t need to feel this pointless tingle of emotions that was certainly not his own and would only weight him down.

 _This soulmates thing_ , he thought, _is really the worst_.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

_(Although he wouldn’t admit it, deep inside he wondered what made the Avatar had that turmoil in the first place._

_The emotional distress he felt at that time was beyond simple sadness._

_It felt like someone had ripped his beating heart out of his chest, only to be left and torn apart._

_And it was the same feeling he got when he lost his mother that day)._

* * *

To his utmost relief, Zuko learned after some time that he would feel the passing emotions from the other through their strange connection, only when his soulmate experienced extreme emotions like rage and sorrow.

It was mostly the latter that he sensed from the other. The wave of emotions might come rarely, but when it did, he felt another emotion, his own one, that welled up inside him.

He realized that it was not anger nor annoyance.

It was unexpectedly a bit of sympathy.

He previously had an impression of the Avatar as an all-powerful being. He thought of the other as an object merely to be pursued to restore his honor.

But the connection between them made Zuko gradually realized that the other was only a human, just like him.

That the Avatar might be destined to do great things, but also was fully capable of feelings and vulnerable to emotions.

Though he would never let his thoughts further stray down that line, too afraid that it would change something within him.

When he struggled from the whirling of the other’s emotions, Zuko always sternly reminded himself that he would return to his own nation someday, not as an outcast, but hailed as the respected crown prince he deserved to be.

He would personally deliver the Avatar to his father’s waiting hands triumphantly.

Then, the Fire Lord would welcome him with open arms and let Zuko stood beside him as the son his father would be proud of like what he wished all these years.

So he steeled his heart and squashed that useless feeling into the hollow pit of his stomach.

After all, was it convenient to be compassionate towards your own soulmate when he was nothing but a mere prize for you?

* * *

Every time he managed to track the Avatar down, both of them never held a proper conversation nor addressed the correlated issue they had, seemingly too busy exchanging blows.

It was like they had a silent agreement to steadfastly never bring “it” up.

But every time one of them accidentally touched during the fight, unintentionally grazed the other’s skin, the burn from the soulmark was unbearable and there was a pull like a lure toward the other.

He always tried to resist the pull whenever it happened, that incomprehensible temptation which was trying to mess with his mind.

But the first time they touched, properly touching, it was purely maddening.

Zuko snatched the airbender’s right wrist from behind, catching Aang off-guard when he was too focused watching the five sages who were trying to open the door of Avatar Roku’s sanctuary.

Aang turned his head in shock, but when the boy saw who the assailant was, his eyes instinctively flew open.

And they both suddenly froze as the burn came back with the more excruciating heat.

Zuko went rigid and his heart was pounding as he tried to kept ahold of the Avatar.

He watched as the Avatar tried to pull his wrist free from his grasp, but also noticed how the younger one’s whole body was trembling as he drew a shaky breath.

Zuko glanced at the boy’s wrist in his larger hand and wondered whether it was where his soulmark was located.

He tightened his hold on the boy’s right wrist and almost shivered in dark delight witnessing how the younger one’s breath hitched.

Like a primal necessity, he wanted, no, needed to touch him more. He needed to see how the boy parted his lips and that beautiful silvery eyes fluttering close at his touch. He yearned to draw the Avatar into his arms, to hold him close, and felt the radiance of his innocence soothed his ice-cold soul.

But when the Avatar broke free from his hold, the illusion and heat of the moment went disappeared.

Morbid embarrassment set in as he recalled all his previous thoughts and actions. He watched as the boy who was in his clutch previously ran away to avoid fire blasts coming his way and finally leaped into the air, sailing through the door of the sanctuary just as it closed.

_He vowed previously to never let mere feelings to dictate his every action! How could he let the Avatar slip away just like that?_

His heart was pounding in anger, even after he finally got back to his ship and retreated to his own chamber. Along the way, the crew who came across him hastily kept their distances from him and made their presences as small as possible to not aggravate the fuming prince further, seemingly knew that his cranky demeanor indicated that it was another day of his failure to capture the Avatar.

The prince angrily slammed the metal door behind him and walked over to his bed and sat on the edge.

He wanted to yell and curse and ram his fist through the iron wall of his ship as he recalled his failure, _another failed attempts_ , to capture the Avatar just because of some damned soulbond that messed with his mind.

But in the dark, he could not help but thought back on the sensation, how it felt so right to have the Avatar in his arm.

Not because he finally could capture the boy for his father to restore his honor, but—

Stopping his unwanted thought, he let out a snarl then shot a fireball from his palm, and the banished prince watched as the flames roared violently before eventually disappeared soon.

How he wished that whatever he felt, this soulmark, _all of these soulmate things_ , could disappear like those flames too.

* * *

Since then, in his wake, he could feel a regular ghost of an emotion that resembled joy and glee.

Sometimes, he could also hear a childish laugh and feel a fleeting warmth, weightless sensation, blooming from his wrist.

In rare days though, Zuko could wake up in anguish, heart pounding, looking confused, like he had a bad dream and then startled awake, but he was so sure he didn’t have one.

It was so uncomfortable and whenever it happened, Zuko felt himself compelled to rub his wrist where the epicenter of the connection located, just to make all those things stopped.

He never did though, in fear of the connection getting more severe than it already was.

So he just ignored and didn’t let himself linger on them.

And if Zuko did enjoy the radiance of the warmth that calmed and soothed him through their connection (and yearned to touch the Avatar once again), he would not let himself admit it.

Not when he had to focus on capturing the Avatar to go back home.

* * *

Yesterday, he dreamed and the dream was of the day of that duel where his father gave him the scar.

Maybe that’s why he felt so agitated this morning, snapping nastily at his uncle and crew.

One of his crew, a lieutenant who Zuko forgot his name was, shouted at him, throwing accusations that he didn’t know anything about respect at all.

_‘What does he know about respect he said?’_

Zuko laughed mockingly inside.

He wanted to explode, to rant and yell and shout, as fury got the best of him.

Instead, inside the protection of the walls in his own chamber, he sat alone in a meditating form and then touched his scar absentmindedly that was engraved on the left side of his face.

It might be not hurt anymore, but the scar always served as a constant reminder.

It linked him to the past and stood for his lost self-worth, his lost birth-right, his lost mother, _everything_.

His eyes eventually screwed shut and he let loose a frustrated growl.

Then the storm indeed approached just like his uncle predicted, but it cleared with only a few bulbous clouds remained when he saw the Avatar and his bison emerged from the calmed water.

He gazed into the silver eyes that briefly met with his own, unconsciously marveling at the, _to him_ , incomprehensible character of the boy who could be a formidable opponent and a force to be reckoned with in a fight, but at the same time, was capable of showing so much compassion that shone in his eyes.

Even to his own enemy, although he was his soulmate.

Still, the banished prince thought that it stupidly suited him so much.

As he watched the boy leading his bison away into the sky before the latter gave him another look, Zuko didn’t know how the tempest in his heart had gone calm, but there was suddenly tenderness welled within him, extinguishing the fire, soothing the aches that had been there such a short time ago.

Zuko sensed a familiar warmth as something, _someone_ , tapped the link, so familiar that he could not be any more familiar with it. He also became so at ease that he could not be any more at ease.

He thought he could feel a genuine concern that radiated from it too.

And it warmed his soulmark, and also his chest.

He found himself wanting to chase after the sensation, capturing the source, to embrace that powerful feeling of bliss and calmness again.

Everyday, if he could.

_“But the important thing is the Avatar gives Zuko hope.”_

He overheard what his uncle previously told his crew.

What they didn’t know was that the Avatar gave him more than that.

He just stood there watching his _soulmate’s_ figure until he disappeared behind the clouds with his thoughts and emotions that were a conflicted jumble.

Wind was free, unfettered, and soothing.

And Zuko thought that it was really just like _him_.

**Author's Note:**

> I planned to make a one-shot before. But as I wrote on my keyboard, too absorbed with the plot, I looked at the word count and it was really a lot for just one chapter lol haha. 
> 
> Btw, the reference in this chapter was from A:TLA Book 1: Water, from episode 1 until the "Storm" episode.


End file.
